Dear editor:

After reading the doom and gloom global warming forecast in the Feb. 29, 2024 edition of the Powell Tribune — “Yellowstone snowpack declining” — I was not sure if I would survive the weekend, much less make it to Yellowstone for the annual first Monday in March spring plowing of interior park roads above Mammoth beginning at the Upper Terrace gate.

Evidently, Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly had not yet received that edition of the Tribune regarding “declining snowpack” in the park, as the amount of snow removal equipment this year was the same as in years past when the park had snow. 

There were some changes in configuration and types of equipment which, in actuality, meant more plowing equipment even though there was less snow, just as the Tribune had reported.  One would figure there would be less carbon emitting plowing equipment corresponding with a smaller snowpack.

With such a robust deployment of equipment and a larger crew, we can hold out hope Cam is on a mission to get the roads plowed ASAP to open the park early giving us back lost visitation when he ripped us off of more than five days of interior access last fall. Ha!  Anyone in market for an iceberg I have for sale? The park closed Oct. 31 as opposed to the decades long traditional closing date of the first Monday in November.

Like his predecessors, Cam does have a let-it-melt policy regarding snow removal. At vault toilets throughout the park, snow is not shoveled to allow access into the facilities in violation of all things ADA, (Americans with Disabilities Act). It eventually melts away. Ironically, the inaccessible toilets inside are in full ADA compliance with appropriate dimensions and grab bars. Contradictions in the park such as this never cease to amaze me. 

Plow crew mechanics Googling in the warmth of their idling pickups waiting hours for an equipment breakdown won’t serve the public and shovel. Perhaps Cam himself should. After all, fisherman Cam is seen in a picture aboard a trawler laboring away the day dredging up lake trout, (Powell Tribune, Feb. 19). He is not averse to hard work.

While in Mammoth I watched another parade. I checked on the park employee daily commute. The same average of 150 personal vehicles has not changed from a couple months ago. Still no buses hauling employees up from Gardiner reducing carbon emissions saving the planet and Yellowstone.  

We don’t know why Cam won’t bus his employees. He is personally down with the struggle saving the park through lake trout removal. It would follow he would be up for another photo-op in front of a fleet of electric buses, perhaps even driving one. Maybe some enterprising news reporters will ask him why no electric buses. Ha! I have a truckload of magic carpets for sale.

Climate change is either man-caused or a natural ecological process. The later dictates management policy in Yellowstone. Let-it-burn, let-it-die, let-it-howl, etc. is the order of the day. 

By throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at global warming studies and mitigation in Yellowstone, the NPS has determined global warming is man-caused. Of course they have — and we are to blame, not them. 

The global warming snow job in Yellowstone is opportunity for more big government and big spending as manifested in an over abundance of snowplows attacking a “declining snowpack”; millions spent on pre-determined, outcome-based research; and more authoritarian control.

Steve Torrey

Wapiti